Humanities & Social Sciences

Xouth, the Ape', published in 1848 by Iakovos Pitsipios is a pioneering and satirical Greek novel that deftly blends humour, cultural critique, and biting social commentary. The novel is set in the aftermath of the Greek War of Independence. The story follows a young Greek man, desperate to present himself as a European aristocrat, who finds himself entangled with Xouth—an ape who is, in fact, a German travel writer transformed as punishment for his vanity and prejudices. Through the interactions between the protagonist and the ape-valet, Pitsipios skewers the pretensions of Greece’s newly minted elites, exposing the often comical efforts to mimic Western manners and ideals. The novel lampoons the wave of Western travel writers who ‘discovered’ Greece, poking fun at their colonial attitudes and superficial observations. The figure of Xouth serves as both a mirror and a caricature, reflecting the absurdities of identity, authenticity, and cultural imitation in a society striving to define itself between East and West. Translated in English for the first time, with an expansive Introduction by Neo G. Christodoulides, the novel explores themes of national identity, the pitfalls of mimicry, and the complexities of cultural exchange. Rich with allusions to both Greek and European literary traditions, Pitsipios draws sharp parallels between his characters’ quests for legitimacy and the real historical debates around language, class, and belonging in 19th-century Greece. The novel’s polyglossic style—a blend of archaic, official, and colloquial Greek—further emphasises the layered and fractured nature of Greek identity at the time. Despite its initial obscurity, the novel’s relevance endures: its sharp satire and insightful social analysis make it not just a humorous adventure, but a revealing document of post-revolutionary Greece and its ongoing negotiations with modernity, Western influence, and self-perception. 'Xouth, the Ape' is a hidden gem that deserves renewed attention from readers, scholars, and anyone fascinated by the crossroads of cultures.

Lucas, the garrulous bishop of Tuy, included the thaumaturgy of Saint Dominic of Silos as one of the glories of Spain in his mid-thirteenth-century account of the Peninsula's history. This study examines the rise to prominence of one of the most important of saints' cults in Medieval Spain and its development throughout the Middle Ages. It interrogates neglected texts such as the late eleventh-century Vita Dominici Exiliensis and the late thirteenth-century Miráculos romançados (as well as artistic representations and works written outside Silos), and places the more widely known Vida de Santo Domingo by Gonzalo de Berceo (‡c. 1260) in a new light by firmly fixing its presentation of the saint within the development of the cult. Dominic's veneration became centred upon his role in freeing captives, and a study of this phenomenon provides a focus on the frontier and its settlers through their devotion to the saint, as well as illuminating their view of their Muslim adversaries. This is not the only centre of interest in the book, and a variety of approaches are employed to draw as round a picture as possible of the functioning of this saint's cult, from analysis of the manuscript traditions of the various works discussed to a consideration of the anthropology of Silos as a pilgrimage centre. All quotations are given in both Latin or Romance with an English translation.

The automotive industry is in the middle of a disruptive change in which a competitive differentiation based on the car as a product itself is not sufficient anymore. Customer centricity is one of the most important management goals in this industrial sector. The consequence is a shift from a product-focused company towards a service provider where the car is just one element to achieve the target of maximum customer satisfaction. Understanding subjective customer perceptions in this complex service environment is the resulting challenge. In order to achieve the highest outcome of a medical treatment perceived by the patients, patient centricity is the core focus of the health care sector since years. The determination of perceived patient satisfaction has been well researched and various measurement approaches exist. This work focuses on the knowledge transfer of perceived satisfaction determination from the health care sector to the automotive industry. A case study has been conducted that illustrates the managerial implications and recommendations for improvement of the established customer satisfaction determination in the automotive industry. Each service process of a car is generating a vast amount of data. This work shows how to make maximum use of this value by answering these two questions: 1. Can dissatisfied customers be classified before the customer service interaction ends based on data that is produced during a service visit? 2. Can the indicators for dissatisfaction be derived from service process data? Based on the knowledge derived in this work, new data-driven service and business models can be developed for the automotive industry to really achieve customer centricity.

The complexion of labour migration in the European Union (EU) has altered in recent years. Not only has there been a shift in the length of time labour migrants spend abroad, but the nature, scale and direction of the migration flows have also changed dramatically. The enlargements of the EU in 2004 and 2007 were influential in this respect. A growing economy and large wage gaps encouraged a large stream of workers to leave the new Member States for the old. The EU’s open internal borders made it easy for them to return home or to move on to another Member State. This publication considers what this means for the future of labour migration and how policy should address this issue.

The relationship between AI, ethics, societal values and standardization is complex. The contributors to this volume discuss the challenges and opportunities involved in standardizing AI ethics, including algorithmic audits, stakeholder participation and certification mechanisms. They offer a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to AI ethics governance, covering topics such as auditing auditors, deceptive robots, HR perspectives on AI in job hiring, and how existing citizen infrastructures can inform standardization processes for ethical AI applications.

In the face of social inequalities, digital divides, hegemonic power relations, capitalist conflicts of interests, asymmetric gender relations and international border and migration regimes, educational and social actions are becoming more challenging. Mediating these social challenges demands new methods and approaches. Thus, the contributors to this volume use critical pedagogies to reflect on art, literature, storytelling, and digital methods as a means to mediating social challenges in teaching practices. The contributions challenge normative perceptions of identity while also promoting students' multiliteracy skills.

Important policy problems rarely fit neatly within existing territorial boundaries. More difficult still, individual governments or government departments rarely enjoy the power, resources and governance structures required to respond effectively to policy challenges under their responsibility. These dilemmas impose the requirement to work with others from the public, private, non-governmental organisation (NGO) or community spheres, and across a range of administrative levels and sectors. But how? This book investigates the challenges—both conceptual and practical—of multi-level governance processes. It draws on a range of cases from Australian public policy, with comparisons to multi-level governance systems abroad, to understand factors behind the effective coordination and management of multi-level governance processes in different policy areas over the short and longer term. Issues such as accountability, politics and cultures of governance are investigated through policy areas including social, environmental and spatial planning policy. The authors of the volume are a range of academics and past public servants from different jurisdictions, which allows previously hidden stories and processes of multi-level governance in Australia across different periods of government to be revealed and analysed for the first time.

Of all the parasitic diseases, leishmaniasis is one of the most diverse, with a variety of manifestations, from relatively minor cutaneous lesions to deadly visceral infections. It is also widespread, causing human disease in the Americas, Asia, Europe and Africa. The environments in which this disease occurs range from desert to tropical jungle to urban habitats. Not surprisingly, the literature on this disease is written in a variety of languages including Portuguese, Arabic, English and French among others. This book provides a synopsis in English of much of the recent research on leishmaniasis, with a focus on the epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment of the disease as described by researchers around the world, but with a focus on the research from Brazil and the Middle East.

Geschäftsprozesse; Modellierung; Digitale Transformation; Business Process Management; BPM; Best Practices; Erfolgsmuster; Prozessmanagement; Prozesse

With the last volume of the „Regesta Imperii under Frederick I“ a project started in 1975 has come to its end. Thereby the whole existing sources concerning the period and the reign of Frederick Barbarossa are encompassed and made accessible by an index of proper names and a bibliography.

South Korea is sometimes held as a dream case of modernization theory, a testament to how economic development leads to democracy. Seeds of Mobilization takes a closer look at the history of South Korea to show that Korea’s advance to democracy was not linear. Instead, while Korea’s national economy grew dramatically under the regimes of Park Chung Hee (1961–79) and Chun Doo Hwan (1980–88), the political system first became increasingly authoritarian. Because modernization was founded on industrial complexes and tertiary education, these structures initially helped bolster the authoritarian regimes. In the long run, however, these structures later facilitated the anti-regime protests by various social movement groups—most importantly, workers and students—that ultimately brought democracy to the country. By using original subnational protest event datasets, government publications, oral interviews, and publications from labor and student movement organizations, Joan E. Cho takes a long view of democratization that incorporates the decades before and after South Korea’s democratic transition. She demonstrates that Korea’s democratization resulted from a combination of factors from below and from above, and that authoritarian development itself was a hidden root cause of democratic development in South Korea. Seeds of Mobilization shows how socioeconomic development did not create a steady pressure toward democracy but acted as a “double-edged sword” that initially stabilized autocratic regimes before destabilizing them over time.

Combining theoretical and empirical approaches, this volume offers a wide-ranging survey of periodical research today. It illustrates the shift from content-related investigations and archival recovery to multidisciplinary analyses which consider, for instance, how magazines, newspapers, and other serial print products shape our opinions and help us to form like-minded communities. International specialists explore periodicals as relational artefacts, highlighting editorial constellations, material conditions, translation, design, marketing, and the consumption of newspapers and magazines from the late seventeenth to the twenty-first century. A must-read for academic and interested readers who wish to explore new and relevant ways to analyze periodicals.

Welchen Platz nehmen die Kämpfe von Gewerkschaften und anderen sozialen Bewegungen in der kollektiven Erinnerung ein? Wie ist es um deren Errungenschaften bestellt? Was stärkt die Werte sozialer Demokratie in der Erinnerungskultur? Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes bieten erstmals ausführliche Einblicke in die Erinnerungsgeschichte sozialer Kämpfe und Auseinandersetzungen um Gleichheit, Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit. An wen oder an was erinnert wurde, erweist sich dabei immer auch als Machtfrage, als Kampf um Inklusion und Exklusion. Dieser Band stellt somit nicht nur einen ersten Schritt auf dem Weg zu einer Erinnerungsgeschichte sozialer Demokratie dar, sondern leistet auch einen Beitrag zur politischen Debatte der Gegenwart.

In fragile states, domestic and international actors sometimes take the momentous step of sharing sovereign authority to provide basic public services and build the rule of law. While sovereignty sharing can help address gaps in governance, it is inherently difficult, risking redundancy, confusion over roles, and feuds between partners when their interests diverge. In Sovereignty Sharing in Fragile States , John D. Ciorciari sheds light on how and why these extraordinary joint ventures are created, designed, and implemented. Based on extensive field research in several countries and more than 150 interviews with senior figures from governments, the UN, donor states, and civil society, Ciorciari discusses when sovereignty sharing may be justified and when it is most likely to achieve its aims. The two, he argues, are closely related: perceived legitimacy and continued political and popular support are keys to success. This book examines a diverse range of sovereignty-sharing arrangements, including hybrid criminal tribunals, joint policing arrangements, and anti-corruption initiatives, in Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Lebanon, Timor-Leste, Guatemala, and Liberia. Ciorciari provides the first comparative assessment of these remarkable attempts to repair ruptures in the rule of law—the heart of a well-governed state.

Looking at literary texts, the volume opens up innovative and differentiated perspectives on the socio-politically controversial phenomenon of migration. It draws on Hartmut Böhme’s notion of literature as a discursive system of actions and symbols that contributes to the self-reflection of societies, even though – or rather precisely because – the ‘disturbing’ character of literature is tolerated and controlled to a certain extent. The analyses gathered in this volume look at contemporary European literature and focus on the question of how experiences of migration are thematized and aesthetically shaped in literary texts. In doing so, concepts of migrant identity, transcultural topographies of memory, phenomena of drawing and transgressing boundaries/borders, as well as notions of in-between spaces come into focus. Particular attention is paid to questions regarding the possibility of a “poetics of migration” by examining textual phenomena such as polyperspectivity, forms of multilingualism, and techniques of pseudo-translation through the lens of transcultural narratology.